Prensa extranjera instala su agenda

Prensa extranjera instala su agenda

Por: Emilio Cárdenas
Ámbito Financiero

La aversión de Cristina Kirchner por el periodismo resulta manifiesta. Está claro que prefiere mantenerse lejos de los periodistas, no tener que contestarles preguntas, ni rendir cuentas, ni hacer conferencias de prensa que no estén absoluta y prolijamente controladas. Electa presidente, deberá ahora tratar de superar la aversión encontrando fórmulas de relación que le permitan construir puentes, acortar distancias y limar asperezas.

La situación es tan obvia, que Patrick Bele -desde las columnas del influyente diario parisino «Le Figaro»-, al describir con algún grado de detalle la victoria electoral de la todavía senadora, después de calificarla de «autoritaria» -y recordar que algunos de sus colaboradores la encuentran «insoportable»-, señala que ella no vacila en llamar «asnos» a aquellos periodistas que se animan a hacerle preguntas incómodas.

Bastante más neutral fue la reacción de los grandes diarios de Nueva York. Tanto «The New York Times», como «The Wall Street Journal» cubrieron -al día siguiente- el resultado de las recientes elecciones argentinas. Pero las noticias sobre la Argentina se evaporaron sólo cuarenta y ocho horas después de las elecciones, cuando los medios prefirieron hablar de las lluvias torrenciales en la República Dominicana o los problemas que le generan al temperamental Hugo Chávez los enormes subsidios a los combustibles que se pagan en Venezuela.

Ambos medios norteamericanos coincidieron, sin embargo, en el pronóstico sobre las cuestiones más urgentes a resolver por la futura presidente. Lo que no es demasiado frecuente, desde que -siendo las ópticas políticas de los dos diarios diametralmente opuestas- sus visiones e interpretaciones de los fenómenos políticos suelen más bien diferir, que coincidir.

# Desafíos

Para Alexei Barrionuevo, de «The New York Times», los desafíos inmediatos son dos: la inflación y la posible crisis energética. A lo que agrega la tarea de mejorar la imagen argentina en el exterior, respecto de la cual cree que la Sra. Kirchner ya comenzó a trabajar con sus publicitadasgiras al exterior, durante la campaña electoral.

Lo mismo sostiene, curiosamente, Matt Moffett, desde las columnas de «The Wall Street Journal». También para él los temas urgentes son: la inflación y las debilidades estructurales en el sector de la energía. Respecto de la situación externa de la Argentina, la califica como de «creciente aislamiento diplomático respecto de sus vecinos en las Américas», para recordar enseguida la desafortunada Cumbre de las Américas de 2005 y sus efectos congelantes respecto de las relaciones con los Estados Unidos y el lamentable conflicto por las papeleras que todavía mantenemos con el Uruguay.

Moffett agrega a esos comentarios la necesidad de sincerar los precios de algunos servicios, señalando que los argentinos pagamospor nuestra electricidad la tercera parte que el promedio de América Latina y, por nuestro gas natural, sólo 4% de lo que pagan los brasileños.

Párrafo aparte merece la nota editorial publicada por la inteligente Mary O'Grady, de «The Wall Street Journal». Para ella, la Argentina parece estar de regreso en la situación en la que estaba en 2001. Con los subsidios y los controles de precios se ha creado, sostiene, una «falsa sensación de prosperidad». La deuda pública como porcentaje del PBI, nos recuerda, es ahora mayor que la de 2001. El Presupuesto, por su parte, sugiere que el gasto público aumentará el año próximo 60%, lo que la preocupa desde que los recursos para financiar ese aumento sólo lo harán en las tres cuartas partes del aumento proyectado. Lo que aparentemente es más grave es que en razón del clima adverso generado desde la administración, la inversión no llega a la Argentina en las magnitudes requeridas para poder seguir creciendo. En rigor, nos dice, la Argentina sólo recibe 60% de la inversión que «la pequeña Chile» ha sido capaz de atraer en 2006, y apenas 76% de lo que ha recibido Colombia. Por todo esto, señala que «la Argentina no ha cambiadonada desde que los políticos la postraran en 2001».

Las visiones externas, según queda visto, distan mucho del triunfalismo que algunos predican -incansablemente- en nuestro propio medio. Ocurre que, espiritualmente, para muchos es siempre mejor escuchar -y creer- que todo va bien, que advertir, en cambio, que quizás eso no sea tan así, desde que hay -dentro y fuera de nuestro país- quienes no piensan que todo luce necesariamente color de rosa.

La falacia del dólar competitivo

La falacia del dólar competitivo

Por: Agustín A. Monteverde
Ámbito Financiero

La primera -desde este domingo primerísima- dama ya ha adelantado que «un dólar suficientemente alto» seguirá integrando la pócima económica. Supuestamente, el dólar alto -o lo que es lo mismo, el peso débil- es la clave para asegurarnos la competitividad exportadora de la mano del crecimiento de las ventas industriales.

Sin embargo, la experiencia de los más de cuatro años de gestión de su cónyuge no es alentadora: las cantidades exportadas crecen a un ritmo tres veces inferior al que lo hacen las importaciones. Y pese al incesante crecimiento de la enorme brecha cambiaria con Brasil -que, por seguir una política inversa a la argentina debería haber sido invadido por nuestros productos- ya se acumularon 52 meses consecutivos (es decir, todo el mandato kirchnerista) de déficit comercial bilateral. En los primeros nueve meses de 2007, por ejemplo, el saldo comercial viene cayendo más de 20% respecto del registrado en el mismo período del año pasado. Y ello pese a los precios sin precedentes alcanzados por la soja y el petróleo.

La nunca reconocida crisis energética llevó a desempolvar tramposas trabas paraarancelarias a las compras a países del grupo 4; de lo contrario, se habría verificado un muy inoportuno déficit justo días antes de los comicios. En setiembre, que no es un mes particularmente complicado para el abastecimiento energético, las exportaciones de combustibles cayeron 33% interanual mientras que las importaciones saltaron 38% interanual.

Entre 2001 y 2006, las ventas totales de la Argentina aumentaron 75%. Pero las de Uruguay crecieron 92% en ese mismo período y las de Perú saltaron 238%. Chile, que en 2001 exportaba menos, ahora vende 26% más. Y Brasil, que ya duplicaba a la Argentina, ahora la triplica.

En la retórica neodesarrollista, dólar alto es sinónimo de producción; sin embargo, son precisamente las limitaciones a la expansión de la oferta -la saturación de la capacidad instalada- por la falta de inversiones y la crisis energética las que han impulsado las importaciones. La «razonable» y «nada preocupante» inflación local hace, a su vez, más competitivos los precios de los productos extranjeros.

El dólar alto puede endulzar los bolsillos del sector industrial, pero no ha alterado su competitividad. Las manufacturas de origen industrial siguen representando menos de un tercio de las exportaciones totales. En setiembre, el crecimiento de las ventas fue impulsado por los productos primarios, que treparon 80%, y por las manufacturas agropecuarias, con 31%; los productos industriales crecieron apenas 5%. Es que, no obstante la abundante e insistente propaganda, en realidad la actividad industrial ha venido comportándose como lastre y no como motor, creciendo entre 2 y 3 puntos por debajo de la economía en su conjunto. En el segundo trimestre, por caso, la industria creció entre un tercio y la mitad de lo que lo hicieron los (nada « productivistas») servicios financieros, la (oligárquica) actividad agropecuaria y el (subsidiado) sector del transporte. Por el lado de las importaciones, sobresalen, además del complejo energético, aparatos de telefonía celular, insumos y bienes de capital para el agro -sector que lidera la inversión productiva pese al sesgo industrialista del modelo-.

El dólar alto nada tiene que ver con la competitividad. Detrás de la excusa exportadora, del antifaz industrialista, se oculta el propósito recaudador: una caja desahogada con la cual domeñar a gobernadores e intendentes y subyugar a corporaciones y votantes. Si el tipo de cambio alto fuera la condición para ser competitivo, ¿qué posibilidades tendrían países como Alemania, Suiza o Gran Bretaña? Sin embargo, mientras éstas son potencias comerciales de primer orden, nuestra participación en el comercio mundial sigue cayendo. ¿O será -como proponen desde algunas usinas- que necesitamos un tipo de cambio muy competitivo? Si ello fuera así, la solución sería ¡la devaluación permanente! (O podríamos preguntarnos por qué se quedaron en chiquitas y no devaluaron, por ejemplo, 20 a 1. Si devaluar da competitividad, nos convertiríamos así en primeros exportadores mundiales. Con seguridad ya lo habríamos sido cuando disfrutábamos la hiperinflación de Alfonsín.)

Para lo que sí ha servido el dólar alto -el peso débil- es para facilitar la adquisición de las principales empresas locales por parte de sus competidoras foráneas, llevando el valor de sus activos a precios de ganga. PECOM, Loma Negra, Alpargatas, Quickfood y otras son tan sólo la punta de lanza de un proceso que recién se inicia.

Curioso nacionalismo el de los gobiernos que hunden la propia moneda, verdadero símbolo de soberanía.

Está claro que ser competitivo tiene que ver con ser productivo, con calidad sumada a eficiencia. Y poco con una simple cuestión nominal y transitoria como el tipo de cambio: para los devaluacionistas sería imposible ser competitivo en un mundo de trueque. Ellos siempre necesitan de la competitividad aportada por los asalariados mal pagos, cobrar en moneda dura y pagar en pesos débiles. Pero, agotado ya el stock de capital que se generó en los odiosos noventa y quedó ocioso con la depresión de 2001, toda devaluación sería ahora trasladada instantáneamente a los precios.

Cabe de toda formas aclarar que nuestra escasa penetración en el comercio global no responde exclusivamente a la falacia del tipo de cambio. Aberrantes derechos de exportación, indecisa política comercial y ausencia de acuerdos comerciales en los últimos años cercenaron las posibilidades de ansiada inserción.

El proteccionismo que tanto denostamos de la Unión Europea no ha impedido que constituya nuestro segundo socio comercial en cuanto a destino de las exportaciones, en especial manufacturas. El Mercosur, en tanto, ha menguado en su papel de comprador y es hoy la única contraparte con la que tenemos déficit en nuestros intercambios; de hecho, si no comerciáramos con este bloque, el saldo de nuestra balanza comercial saltaría 30%. Pese a las ventajas comerciales que nos provee nuestra condición de socios de un mercado común, hemos quedado rezagados por detrás de EE.UU. y de China como proveedores de Brasil.

Mención aparte merece Chile. Pese al destrato del gobierno kirchnerista y la forzada caída de las exportaciones gasíferas, el excedente comercial con nuestro vecino es el mayor que tenemos con cualquier bloque o país y significa un tercio del total.

El sector externo, además, es severamente dependiente de los inusitados términos de intercambio (precios relativos de lo que vendemos versus lo que compramos) y exhibe numerosas vulnerabilidades. Aunque el precio de los productos agropecuarios se mantenga a salvo del deterioro del contexto internacional, si las compras siguen creciendo más rápido que las exportaciones y la crisis energética colapsara el superávit que aportan los combustibles (36% del total), el saldo comercial del año próximo podría reducirse a menos de la mitad. Si es cierto que pretende imprimirle a su gestión una visión más abierta al mundo que la de su marido, es conveniente que algún economista políticamente correcto le advierta a la señora Kirchner que nuestra política comercial sigue el rumbo equivocado.

New President, Old Cycle

New President, Old Cycle
Can Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner avoid another economic bust?

Washington Post

CRISTINA FERNÁNDEZ de Kirchner was elected president of Argentina on Sunday in a relatively free and fair vote. That's not to be taken for granted; not only has Argentina suffered from chronic political turmoil in the past, but several other Latin American governments, led by Hugo Chávez's Venezuela, are working to dismantle the liberal democracies established throughout the region in the 1980s. Ms. Fernández de Kirchner was nominated by her husband, the outgoing president N¿stor Kirchner, who poured state resources into her campaign. Yet she could have won without the extra help: The Kirchners are riding a wave of popularity born of rapidly rising incomes for Argentines during the past four years.

Certainly, Argentina has changed significantly since the last time a woman became president in succession to her husband. Isabel Per¿n, who took office in 1974, presided over economic catastrophe and a virtual civil war before being deposed in a military coup. Democracy has now endured nearly a quarter century, the military is confined to its barracks, and violent revolutionary movements are a distant memory. But Argentina -- and Ms. Fern¿ndez de Kirchner's Per¿nist party -- still have not learned the lessons of the country's history. That could make the coming years more turbulent.

For the last century, Argentina has lived by a cycle of economic boom and bust, driven by prices for its agricultural exports, by the fondness of its governments for populist policies and by its resistance to playing by the usual rules of global financial markets. The boom under Mr. Kirchner, which followed the devastating bust of 2001, follows the usual pattern: It has been fueled by high prices for Argentine beef, wheat and soybeans, and by Mr. Kirchner's stiffing of international creditors, vast government spending, and controls on energy and food prices. The predictable result has been disinvestment in the energy sector that already has caused brownouts and mounting inflation that is probably double the official estimate of 9 percent annually.

The Kirchners managed to get through the election season by manipulating the inflation figures and bullying supermarkets into keeping prices down. Now Ms. Fern¿ndez de Kirchner, who conducted her campaign without participating in a debate or even holding a news conference, must make a crucial decision. She can use her mandate to deliver the tough medicine the economy needs -- including energy price and interest rate increases, a revaluation of the currency and a reconciliation with the International Monetary Fund, which holds the key to renewed foreign investment. Or she can pursue her husband's populist course until it produces another crash. Ms. Fern¿ndez de Kirchner is a seasoned politician with more interest in the outside world than her predecessor. But it will be a pleasant surprise if she avoids repeating history.

Luz verde para ajustes: más retenciones, freno a gasto y suba de tarifas

Luz verde para ajustes: más retenciones, freno a gasto y suba de tarifas

Guillermo Laborda
Ámbito Financiero

Quedó liberado ayer el gobierno del cepo para señales de ajuste: desde hoy se pondrán en marcha diferentes medidas que se venían postergando por el temor a pagar el costo en votos de esos anuncios. Antes del 10 de diciembre se anunciaría una suba en las retenciones a las exportaciones de soja y trigo (podría ser de 5 puntos) y en el paquete hasta podría incluirse, de ser necesario, un incremento en los aportes patronales. Lo que está claro es que desde el Ministerio de Economía se quiere dar rápidamente la señal de solidez de las cuentas públicas, tras el derrumbe del superávit primario a sólo 1,9% del PBI (sin contar como ingresos lo recibido por el Tesoro por los traspasos de AFJP a la jubilación estatal).

Néstor Kirchner en la cumbre del 6 de setiembre de la UIA en Parque Norte ya había señalado: «Cristina nos dice que gastamos mucho y que ella no va a bajar de 4% del superávit». No se le creyó y difícil que se cumpla en el corto plazo. Pero las promesas oficiales apuntan a una recomposición del superávit por $ 10.000 millones, lo que, de todas maneras, implica volver a un ahorro de 3% del PBI en 2008. Podría ser tomado como una auspiciosa señal en mercados.

# Promesa

En los planes oficiales trascendió de fuentes allegadas al futuro gobierno que « comienza desde ahora una etapa en la que mes a mes el aumento de la recaudación será mayor que el del gasto». ¿Se lo cumplirá? Deberá mostrárselo cada 30 días para que impacte en la confianza de inversores. Pero el ajuste fiscal no trae aparejados giros a la ortodoxia, especialmente en lo que se refiere al combate a la inflación. Concretamente, en los próximos días se anunciarán más compensaciones sectoriales para frenar el incremento de precios. Esto está en línea con el incremento de las retenciones a las exportaciones: alcanzarán al trigo y a la soja, pero no necesariamente al maíz (su aumento de cotización no fue tan significativo en 2007).

Del INDEC, poco y nada en el corto plazo. La continuidad del secretario de Comercio Interior, Guillermo Moreno, en su cargo estaría descartada (ya hasta hay ministros que no toleran su presencia), pero dado que en los planes oficiales no existen medidas concretas para hacer bajar la inflación de casi 20% a 8%, tampoco hay incentivos para blanquear la forma en que se miden los precios. Así, el INDEC sólo será transparente cuando la inflación real sea de un dígito. En el interín, el alza de precios ayuda a aumentar la recaudación y ayuda a hacer retornar al superávit primario al mencionado 3% del PBI.

# Emisión de deuda

Lo que también es inminente es la emisión de deuda en los mercados, siempre y cuando la crisis de hipotecas en Estados Unidos deje abierta una rendija. Hubo bancos del exterior que ofrecieron a Miguel Peirano la emisión de un título a cinco años de plazo en dólares a una tasa de 10% anual. En el plan electoral de Néstor Kirchner no figuraba la posibilidad de convalidar un alto costo financiero para la Argentina. No fue gratis ello: en el interín el gobierno debió usar reservas para afrontar diferentes vencimientos de la deuda, los que se incrementan fuerte en diciembre. Mientras más dinero necesite el gobierno de los mercados, más desconfianza genera. Por ello la necesidad de hacer caja rápidamente y dejar de sacrificar reservas. Así, la primera propuesta seria de financiamiento que se reciba será rápidamente aceptada por el gobierno.

Las tarifas de los servicios públicos serán quitadas de la herencia que deja Néstor Kirchner a su sucesora. «Habrá aumento de tarifas, pero sólo aquellos hogares con altos ingresos», aseguraron ayer fuentes oficiales. Una repetición del ABL de Mauricio Macri, trasladado a la electricidad.

Un interrogante no menor en el entorno oficial pasa por la continuidad del secretario de Hacienda, Carlos Mosse, de consulta casi diaria de Néstor Kirchner. Se descuenta que se alejará del cargo (por propia voluntad) y su reemplazo no será fácil. Lo que está claro es que no será Manuel Herrera, uno de los paladines de la UIA y recientemente contratado en el Ministerio de Economía con sueldo de $ 6.267 mensuales.

Proyecto de la reforma del Estado

Guillermo Sine Metu

¿Qué exige la riqueza de parte de la ley para producirse y crearse? Lo que Diógenes exigía de Alejandro: que no le haga sombra.
Juan Bautista Alberdi
Cuando nos referimos a la reforma del Estado muchas veces utilizamos la palabra "instituciones", y existe la tendencia a identificar a éstas con los edificios públicos, los organismos con títulos rimbombantes que funcionan en ellos y las personas que trabajan en ellos. Sin embargo existe un nivel institucional mucho más importante que es el marco regulatorio normativo que los funcionarios utilizan como referencia para su interacción con la sociedad, tanto en nuestro carácter de ciudadanos como en el de empresarios o agentes económicos.

Cuando las regulaciones son excesivas en cantidad o pobres en calidad, representan una carga innecesaria sobre la actividad económica de la sociedad.

Al hablar de reforma del Estado en Argentina analizamos diferentes áreas:

· En primer lugar figuran las llamadas funciones básicas del Estado, entre las que se encuentran seguridad, justicia y defensa, la educación y la salud públicas.

· La reducción y limitación de los recursos utilizados para el sostenimiento del Estado, en búsqueda de una mayor eficiencia del gasto público. Tal como lo demuestra el trabajo de Gwartney una disminución del peso del gasto público sobre el PBI es un incentivo a una mayor tasa de crecimiento económico.

· La implementación de soluciones eficaces y eficientes para los grupos de mayor vulnerabilidad económica y social (desocupados, pobres e indigentes), que debe representar un carácter coyuntural ante la emergencia.

· Disminución y/o eliminación de funciones orientadas a la regulación, control y promoción de actividades productivas del sector privado, esto es el marco regulatorio institucional que permita asegurar el crecimiento de largo plazo.

Son las medidas de largo plazo las que más afectan al proceso de crecimiento económico, ya que son las señales y referencias que el sector público envía a los agentes económicos que esperan tomar decisiones de inversión.

El objetivo de este documento es impulsar una mejora en la calidad de las regulaciones del Estado Argentino desde dos puntos de vista:

· El proceso. Esto es la manera en que las regulaciones son elaboradas y formuladas.
· El producto. Es decir la efectividad y eficiencia de las regulaciones.

Desde el sector privado es necesario participar y colaborar activamente con los funcionarios públicos durante el proceso de reformas al marco regulatorio para buscar conjuntamente con el Estado las medidas más eficientes para el objetivo de crecimiento sostenido de la actividad económica nacional a través de la participación individual, a través de cámaras sectoriales etc., fundamentalmente concentrando la atención en el impacto de las decisiones regulatorias: Los costos y beneficios de corto y largo plazo, la transparencia en el proceso de elaboración y de implementación de las regulaciones, la consideración de opciones alternativas para atacar el problema y los riesgos de cada una de ellas, las posibles dificultades de implementación y los costos ocultos o dificultades prácticas para la implementación.

Los mecanismos de consulta durante el proceso de elaboración de las normas regulatorias deben ser un objetivo reclamado por todas las personas y entidades afectadas por las mismas.

La regulación es una metodología del Estado para alcanzar objetivos de política pública. Una regulación de calidad permitirá entre otras cosas:

· Establecer y mantener el orden en la sociedad
· Mantener predecibilidad y certidumbre en el mundo de los negocios
· Minimizar la exposición del público a ciertos riesgos, al proteger los derechos de los ciudadanos.

La generación de mejores normas provocará una mejoría en la calidad de las instituciones y ayudará a promover mayores niveles de crecimiento sostenido.

El objetivo de mejorar el marco regulatorio no podrá alcanzarse solamente mediante la simple minimización del volumen de las normas, aunque esta sí puede ser una solución en algunos casos. Si logramos asegurar una regulación de alta calidad, y desarrollar un mejor sistema de gestión de los sistemas regulatorios lograremos alcanzar el máximo potencial competitivo en nuestra economía.

El Estado cuenta con tres herramientas fundamentales para políticas de gobierno: Las regulaciones, los impuestos y el gasto público. La vida de cada ciudadano y el funcionamiento de cada empresa son afectados por la regulación. Y ésta puede tener dos efectos muy distintos: puede ser una herramienta facilitadora o por el contrario convertirse en un obstáculo del desarrollo individual y empresarial. Las regulaciones facilitadoras crean condiciones que maximizan el bienestar económico y social y protegen a los grupos más vulnerables. Las regulaciones que obstaculizan imponen mayores costos sobre los ciudadanos y las empresas, y pueden ahogar la competitividad, la innovación y el progreso. El desafío de quienes elaboran las normas es el de asegurarse que las regulaciones no tengan efectos contrarios a los deseados.

De los ejemplos exitosos en el mundo podemos extraer valiosas enseñanzas para aplicar en nuestro propio proceso de perfeccionamiento del marco regulatorio. En países como Irlanda, durante mucho tiempo las regulaciones estaban orientadas hacia los factores de producción. Esto llevaba a proteger a la industria mediante privilegios que impedían la libre competencia y que provocaban grandes perjuicios a los consumidores, ya que debían conformarse con menor variedad, peor calidad y precios más altos. Los empresarios habían cambiado el incentivo de ganar a través de la competitividad por el de ganar a través de las prebendas obtenidas del Estado. Las reformas incorporadas privilegiaron la apertura comercial y el libre mercado, lo que resultó en beneficio del consumidor, y devolvieron la verdadera función al empresario, quien al verse despojado de sus privilegios volvió a tener incentivos de aumento de la competitividad y crecimiento.

Analizando la evidencia empírica, podemos afirmar que una reforma exitosa del marco regulatorio argentino debería incorporar los siguientes objetivos:

· Una administración de justicia confiable que garantice los derechos de propiedad, el cumplimiento de los contratos y la predictibilidad de los procesos.

· Incentivo de la libre competencia, eliminando todos los privilegios.

· Integración de la economía argentina al mundo: (en 2001 exportamos sólo un 8% del PBI contra un 46% de Chile y un 75% de Irlanda)

· Disminución de la presión tributaria, simplificar el sistema impositivo y eliminar las regulaciones distorsivas del mercado laboral.

· Disciplina fiscal y monetaria que aseguren un escenario estable en el largo plazo.

Entre las medidas tendientes a favorecer el libre comercio internacional podemos citar disminución de aranceles, firma de acuerdos de libre comercio con países de mayor productividad relativa para reducir el poder de lobby de los sectores nacidos bajo el paraguas de la sustitución de importaciones, eliminación de impuestos a la exportación y subsidios para evitar las distorsiones de las transferencias intersectoriales, garantizar la ausencia de distorsiones generadas por el Estado en materia de política monetaria y cambiaria.

A continuación se enumera una serie de consideraciones que deberían cumplir las regulaciones:

Beneficios para los consumidores:

· Brindar una oferta más amplia de productos y servicios.

· Mejorar el acceso a la información para las decisiones de compra y sobre derechos del consumidor.

· Incorporar los intereses de los consumidores al proceso de elaboración de regulaciones.

· Evitar las regulaciones que favorezcan los intereses de los productores sobre los de los consumidores.

· Garantizar el correcto funcionamiento del proceso de aplicación del marco regulatorio.

Mejoras de la competitividad:

· Evitar normas restrictivas tanto para la instalación de nuevas empresas como para el funcionamiento normal de las existentes, o que impongan costos excesivos.

· Estimular la inversión privada y el acceso a fuentes de capital para empresas nuevas y existentes.

· Promover una cultura de innovación y emprendimiento.

· Facilitar el acceso a mercados de insumos y materias primas.

Apoyo al libre mercado

· Mantener un adecuado equilibrio en decisiones que comprometan el desarrollo de la libre competencia cuando objetivos sociales, como el orden público, puedan estar afectados.

· Fortalecer la adhesión de la regulación al compromiso de una política coherente de competitividad empresaria.

· Promover un sistema de evaluación de impacto regulatorio.

· Remover normas anti-competencia.

· Promover la inversión tanto estatal como privada en áreas fundamentales para el desarrollo de la actividad económica que permitan bajar costos y aumentar la eficiencia de la economía nacional.

Aseguramiento de la calidad del proceso regulatorio

· Generar un mecanismo de rendición de cuentas (accountability) para los encargados de la elaboración de las políticas de regulación, con roles claros y definidos.

· Asegurar la aplicación de las normas, y que la misma sea uniforme en todo el país..

· Fortalecer la calidad de las regulaciones mediante niveles superiores de revisión, herramientas de análisis de impacto, principios de costo-beneficio, búsqueda de alternativas a la regulación, la integración de un proceso público de consulta, la capacitación de los servidores públicos.

· Aumentar la transparencia mediante la estandarización de sistemas de consulta con uso de herramientas como Internet.

· Revisar las leyes y otras normas existentes para buscar las reformas necesarias y adaptarlas de acuerdo con los criterios de apertura económica.

· Contribuir a la adopción de normas coordinadas con los países del MERCOSUR en armonía con las prácticas estándares internacionales.

· Incentivar las prácticas de mejora de las regulaciones en los niveles provinciales y municipales.

Mejorar la calidad de los entes de aplicación de las regulaciones

· Cambiar los incentivos básicos del gobierno promoviendo la competencia entre proveedores.

· Capacitar a los empleados.

· Medir los resultados (premios y castigos) Focalizar en los clientes de las regulaciones.

· Descentralizar

· Control ciudadano (ONG's)

· Experimentar y aprender de los éxitos

Si la reforma del Estado busca mejorar los niveles de crecimiento de la economía para alcanzar un mayor estándar de vida de la población, no debemos olvidar que:

· Los cambios en los incentivos influencian el comportamiento humano.

· Las cuatro fuentes del crecimiento del ingreso son el mejoramiento de las habilidades de los trabajadores, la formación de capital, el mejoramiento tecnológico, y la mejor organización económica.

· Las ganancias orientan los negocios hacia las actividades que incrementan la riqueza.

· Ignorar los efectos secundarios y las consecuencias de largo plazo es la fuente más común de error en la economía.

Economic Reckoning Looms

In Argentina's Election 'El Loco' Price Controls Help First Lady Lead, But Inflation Still Rises

By MATT MOFFETT
October 25, 2007 - WSJ

BUENOS AIRES -- Argentina has had plenty of anti-inflation plans over the years. The current one may be the first that rests heavily on a public servant whom some executives and politicians have nicknamed "El Loco," or the Crazy Man.

The official, Guillermo Moreno, is Argentina's Secretary of Internal Commerce, the government's price policeman. His mission is limiting price markups in the red-hot economy -- at least until the leftist Cristina Kirchner, the wife of the current president, Néstor Kirchner, can win her own bid for president. Elections are scheduled for this Sunday, and she's heavily favored to win.

With the Kirchners' blessing, Mr. Moreno has hammered out price-control agreements with industry, doled out subsidies and imposed export restrictions to keep the domestic market awash in goods. He has also threatened uncooperative businesses with prosecution under a recently resurrected 33-year law against hoarding goods. When none of that worked to restrain prices, a prosecutor has alleged, Mr. Moreno ousted the government statisticians who prepared the consumer price index and installed his own people to massage the numbers. Mr. Moreno denies that; a judge is reviewing the case.

Argentina has often been a standard-bearer for economic trends in Latin America. In the 1990s, it was a leader in the wave of free-market capitalism that swept the region. That ended in a harrowing collapse in 2001. This decade, the Kirchner government has moved toward greater state control over the economy alongside several Latin American countries, including Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. With Latin America divided between those populist governments and countries pursuing free-market economics, the fate of Ms. Kirchner and Argentina could affect policy choices around the region.

As Argentina's governing faction tries to prolong the country's roaring economic recovery -- and maintain its grip on power -- it is waging an increasingly desperate battle to contain inflation. The government's tainted figures put the annual figure at 8%, while most independent economists peg it around twice that high. Rather than cooling off the economy and fixing bottlenecks to future prosperity, Mr. Kirchner's government has been intervening in markets and prices with a heavy hand.

The moves are often proving ineffective and sometimes sow distortions in the economy that could make lasting solutions even more difficult. When Mr. Moreno tried to set potato prices following a bad crop, with a hotline for reporting profiteers, consumers rejected the officially priced spuds as low-quality. ("They were not fit to feed pigs," said a consumer advocate.) Most ominously, artificially low power prices -- one-third the region's average for residential electricity -- have spurred demand while discouraging new investment in electricity and natural gas. That led to power rationing during the last Southern Hemisphere winter in June and July and raised fears about the coming summer months.

Ms. Kirchner, a senator and top adviser to her husband, has been running as the guarantor of his legacy -- a 50% expansion in Argentina's annual economic output in the past five years. Polls show her winning election without the need for a runoff, largely because the boom is the most vigorous in Argentina in the past century. Since Mr. Kirchner took office amid a withering crisis, Argentina has reduced unemployment to about 8% from 18% and taken a big bite out of the poverty rate. His backers note that mainstream economists have frequently scoffed at his policies despite the country's recovery. Mercedes Marcó del Pont, an economist and congresswoman of the Kirchners' party, contends some government intervention in prices is justified to confront inflationary pressures coming from abroad.

The opposition seems too divided to overcome Ms. Kirchner, especially since her husband's government has used the power of incumbency to direct benefits such as pension and wage increases toward key voter blocs. One leading opposition candidate is Roberto Lavagna, Mr. Kirchner's former economy minister who broke with him in 2005 amid disagreements over inflation policy, and wants to restrain government spending to control inflation -- not a popular position. Mr. Lavagna, who also wants to aggressively court investment, derides the Kirchners' policy as "the ostrich plan: You put your head in a hole."

Few expect radical changes in direction under the current first lady, who has been vague about her plans to tackle inflation -- saying only that she wants to broker a pact between business and labor to control prices. At a recent campaign event, Ms. Kirchner boasted her husband's government has produced "an upward social mobility that hasn't occurred in a long time." The Kirchners decided she would be the candidate as Mr. Kirchner's still-high popularity was beginning to ebb, analysts say.

Ms. Kirchner represents "a change in the packaging, but basically the same ideas as her husband," says Herman Weiss, president of the Argentine operations of Chubb Corp., the Warren, N.J., based insurer. It's unclear whether Mr. Moreno, who got his "El Loco" nickname for his hard-nosed style in dealings with business executives over prices, will stay on after the election, but it seems inevitable that the government will maintain an interventionist posture. Mr. Moreno, also derided as "El Sheriff" and "El Taliban," has described himself as simply "a soldier" of the government.

The surest way most economists see to curb demand and upgrade the overburdened infrastructure is through price increases that could spark a nasty backlash on the street. The International Monetary Fund has specifically suggested Argentina get a tighter grip on spending and allow the peso to appreciate, to pursue a "soft landing" with low inflation. The Kirchner government counters that the IMF gives bad advice and the cheap peso is needed to keep its exports up. It also helps boost government tax receipts on agricultural exports, which are denominated in dollars.

The Kirchners' effort to suppress inflation is the latest chapter in a country whose economic history is replete with booms, busts and risky financial experiments that still affect its current dynamics. In reaction to runaway inflation, Argentina pegged its peso to the dollar and adopted an array of free-market policies in 1991. The currency gimmick cured inflation and, combined with measures like privatization of state businesses and trade liberalization, ignited a brief period of growth. But the monetary straitjacket, at a time when global commodity prices and the strong dollar made Argentine exports expensive, limited policymakers from stimulating the deflating economy. It finally led to an economic collapse amid street riots in 2001.

While Argentina was still trying to find its way out of a mammoth recession in 2003, Mr. Kirchner, a little-known Patagonian governor, emerged as the standard-bearer for the party of legendary strongman Juan Domingo Perón, and was elected president. At that point, with the poverty rate just above 50%, many better-known political figures simply didn't want the job. But Argentina's luck was beginning to turn.

From his predecessor, Mr. Kirchner inherited as economy minister Mr. Lavagna, who planned to restore economic confidence by building up the "the twin surpluses." He used a tax on soybean exports to produce a budget surplus in a chronically deficit-ridden government. Applying capital controls and heavy intervention on currency markets, Mr. Lavagna kept the peso undervalued, stimulating exports and helping build a huge trade surplus. It happened that Argentina got a providential tail wind from China's economic boom, which has led to higher prices for Argentina's agricultural commodities.

Argentina habitually tweaked the international financial establishment. Mr. Kirchner infuriated international financiers by paying bondholders only about 30 cents on the dollar after a massive default. He paid off Argentina's entire $9.8 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund, just to have it out of his hair, and began accepting assistance from the Venezuelan leftist Hugo Chávez.

The combination of high commodity prices, extra resources from stiffing creditors, and Mr. Lavagna's "twin surpluses" put Argentina on a roll again. Shoppers and tourists filled Buenos Aires boulevards that not long before had been occupied by pot-banging protestors. Banks, previously boarded up to keep out demonstrators, began competing to hand out credit cards and consumer loans.

Then in 2005 Mr. Kirchner dumped Mr. Lavagna and started taking a more hands-on role in running the economy. Mr. Kirchner has ramped up spending, helping to fuel inflation. The government's fiscal surplus is rapidly shrinking due to subsidies for energy, as well as goodies for pensioners, some public-sector workers and other key constituencies. There are also inflationary pressures from the higher international prices for Argentine agricultural commodities, which are blowing back to cash registers at home.

With Mr. Lavagna gone, Mr. Kirchner bet heavily on Mr. Moreno and a new Internal Commerce secretariat to keep a lid on inflation. Mr. Moreno has used his sweeping powers to thrash out ostensibly voluntary price-control agreements with a range of businesses from supermarkets to soft drink bottlers. Businesses that resist the agreements can find that they really aren't so voluntary after all. Mr. Kirchner often excoriates business people who get too greedy as "rogues who want to earn a little more and do damage to the country."

Mr. Kirchner has carried on a running feud with the Argentine unit of Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which has a refining operation and hundreds of service stations here. Shell's problems started in 2005 when it raised pump prices in line with rising international oil prices. Mr. Kirchner immediately used his bully pulpit to call for a boycott of Shell, urging Argentines to refrain from buying "even a can of oil." The company quickly rescinded a gasoline price increase after pro-government protestors marched on its service stations.

Things got hotter for Shell last December when the government accused it of failing to stock sufficient supplies of diesel fuel. Using the 1974 antihoarding law promulgated under Mr. Perón, Mr. Moreno has levied fines of almost $20 million against the company and sought jail time for the company's local president, an Argentine citizen. Shell, which says it did nothing wrong and is contesting the charges in an Argentine court, maintains it is being singled out for harsh treatment. Shell says it has been the target of close to two-thirds of the about 800 Internal Commerce inspections in the fuel business, though it accounts for only 13% of the diesel market.

Government controls have also caused havoc in the beef industry. Argentines are the world's biggest beef eaters -- annually consuming around 140 pounds per person -- and the government made a priority of trying to keep low-coast beef in supermarkets and butcher shops.

The government last year banned beef exports for a time. Continued restrictions will limit beef sold abroad this year to around 60% of 2005's volume, the industry says. Mr. Moreno also took control of Argentina's main cattle market for several months and tried fixing a maximum price. He only succeeded in stimulating a black market for cattle. When beef producers balked at price constraints early this year, the government temporarily shut down three slaughterhouses over a variety of alleged administrative or bookkeeping violations.

The interference has been the last straw prompting some cattlemen to scale down their herds and turn their lands over to the more lucrative cultivation of soybeans and wheat. "It is impossible to design a business plan with policies that are so changeable," says cattleman Alberto Lasmartres Moyano, who has reduced his herd to 2,000 head from 8,000. Meanwhile, Argentine supermarkets and butcher shops still have periodic problems with the supply and quality of meat, with more expected.

Mr. Moreno increasingly seems like the boy with his thumb in the dike. Consumer groups say that some businesses have been outfoxing price controllers by putting products in smaller volume packages. Mr. Moreno has touted an agreement with bakeries to produce "economical bread" at about 35 cents a pound. But the taste was so bad few bakeries could sell it.

Working Argentines are beginning to find inflation offsetting some of the past years' prosperity. With a recent weather-related spike in some food prices, the poorest fifth of Argentine families would have to spend all their income just to maintain normal consumption of tomatoes, squash and potatoes, according to consumer activist Pedro Bussetti. Marina Pardo, a housewife and mother of four, says she's substituting rice for fresh produce. "There are some foods we can no longer afford," she says.

Unable to halt the march of inflation, the Kirchner government moved early this year to cover it up, according to a prosecutor conducting an administrative misconduct inquiry. The prosecutor's report says Mr. Moreno's new statisticians began "accommodating the numbers to political necessity," in a way that was "deceiving." Mr. Moreno wouldn't comment for this article, but recently told Argentine reporters that the index "reflects reality" and has denied any manipulation.

Increasingly, consultants and consumer groups are preparing their own inflation indexes, which tell a different story. Amanda Ruybal, a price surveyor for the independent Center for Education of the Consumer, might have been in an alternative universe for all her recent supermarket survey had in common with the government's. The official price index showed a dozen eggs cost 3.13 pesos; Ms. Ruybal found them for 4.45. Officially, a package of ravioli cost 4.45 pesos but she found it at 6.49. "You have to trust your own eyes these days, not the index," Ms. Ruybal said.

Leopard: Faster, Easier Than Vista

Upgrade of Apple's OS Isn't Revolutionary, But It Beats Microsoft's

October 25, 2007

The Mac is on a roll. Apple Inc.'s perennially praised but slow-selling Macintosh computers have surged in popularity in the past few years, with sales growing much faster than the overall PC market, especially in the U.S. By some measures, Mac laptops are now approaching a 20% share of U.S. noncorporate sales, up from the low single digits where they once seemed stuck.

There are several reasons for this, including the security problems in the dominant Windows platform from Microsoft; spillover from Apple's blistering success with its iPod music players; the fact that Macs can now run Windows programs; and Apple's highly successful chain of company-owned retail stores.

But another key factor has been the Mac operating system, called OS X, which came out in 2001. It has proved to be as powerful and versatile for mainstream consumers as Windows, yet easier to use and more secure. And Apple has upgraded OS X far more rapidly than Microsoft Inc. has upgraded Windows, bringing out major new releases roughly every 18 months, while Microsoft struggled for more than five years to produce the latest Windows iteration, Vista, which came out in January.

On Friday evening, Apple will release yet another new version of OS X, called Leopard, to replace the current version, known as Tiger. I've been testing Leopard, and while it is an evolutionary, not a revolutionary, release, I believe it builds on Apple's quality advantage over Windows. In my view, Leopard is better and faster than Vista, with a set of new features that make Macs even easier to use.

Leopard will come preinstalled on all new Macs. It can also be purchased for $129 as an upgrade to existing Macs that, depending on configuration, can be as many as six years old. Unlike Vista, which is sold in four noncorporate upgrade versions ranging from a $100 stripped-down "basic" edition to a $259 deluxe "ultimate" edition, there's only one version of Leopard. It includes all the features, from those aimed at novices to those aimed at power users.

For me, the marquee features in Leopard are a new function called Time Machine that automatically backs up your entire computer in the background; two new methods, called Cover Flow and Quick Look, for rapidly viewing the contents of files without opening any programs; and new techniques that allow you to access the files in, and to remotely control, other computers on your network or connected over the Internet with a few clicks and no technical expertise.

Plus, Apple's free software for running Windows on a Mac, called Boot Camp, which was formerly an add-on users had to download and install, is now built right into the operating system. And, in my tests, the third-party Fusion program for running Windows and Mac programs simultaneously continued to work fine in Leopard.

I did notice a few drawbacks, but they were minor. The menu bar is now translucent, which can make it hard to see the items it contains if your desktop picture has dark areas at the top. The new folder icons are dull and flat and less attractive than Vista's or their predecessors on the Mac. While Time Machine can perform backups over a network, the backup destination can only be a hard disk connected to a Mac running Leopard. And, on the Web, I ran into one site where the fonts on part of the page were illegible, a problem Apple says is known and rare and that I expect it will fix.

While Apple claims the new system includes more than 300 new features, there is nothing on the list that could be considered startling or a major breakthrough. Some of Leopard's features are unique, but many others -- such as backing up data and quickly viewing files -- have been available on both Windows and the Mac via third-party programs or hard-to-find geeky methods buried in the operating systems. Leopard has made them easy to find and use.

When I upgraded my personal iMac desktop to Leopard, it took less than an hour, and after the process was complete, all my programs, including the Mac version of Microsoft Office, the Firefox Web browser and Adobe Reader, worked rapidly and fine. I was still able to run Windows XP via Fusion. And my previous installation of Boot Camp, which turns the iMac into a speedy, full-fledged Vista machine after a reboot, worked perfectly. All my Vista programs and files continued to function properly.

With Cover Flow, users get a visual preview of a computer's files without having to open programs.
In fact, every piece of software and hardware I tried on two Leopard-equipped Macs -- a loaned laptop from Apple and my own upgraded iMac -- worked fine, exhibiting none of the compatibility problems that continue to plague Vista. My old Hewlett-Packard inkjet printer, for which Vista lacks the proper software, worked instantly in Leopard, even over the network. And, unlike with Vista, it was able to print on both sides of the page. I popped my old Verizon cellphone modem card into the test Leopard laptop and it worked, too, with no software installation or tweaking.

Leopard felt about as fast as Tiger, and it started up much faster than Vista in my tests. I compared a MacBook Pro laptop with Leopard preinstalled to a Sony Vaio laptop with Vista preinstalled. Even though I had cleared out all of the useless trial software Sony had placed on the Vaio, it still started up painfully slowly compared with the Leopard laptop.

It took the Vista machine nearly two minutes to perform a cold start and be ready to run, including connecting to my wireless network. The Leopard laptop was up, running and connected to the network in 38 seconds. In a test of restarting the two laptops after they had been running an email program, a Web browser and a word processor, the Sony with Vista took three minutes and 29 seconds, while the Apple running Leopard took one minute and five seconds.

Here's a rundown of some of Leopard's key features. Much more detailed information is available at apple.com/macosx3.

File management: Apple's Finder, the equivalent of Explorer in Windows, now offers two new ways to quickly see what your files contain. You can still view them as icons or lists. But you can also use Cover Flow, the same system Apple uses in iTunes and on the iPhone to display album covers for music. In Leopard, a large preview of each file you select appears above the list of files in a folder, and you can rapidly scroll through these icons. These previews are live, and their contents can be viewed without opening the program that is normally needed to display them.

An even better and deeper look can be obtained using a feature called Quick Look. Just hit the space bar or click on a toolbar icon, and a preview of any selected file zooms out. You can even view multiple sheets in an Excel file via Quick Look without launching Excel.

Another quick new way to see your files is available in the Dock, the Mac's equivalent of the Windows Task Bar. Here, any folder you place on the right side of the dock will display its contents, after a single click, either as a grid of icons displaying miniversions of the file or as a "fan," or arc, of such icons. These special Dock folders are called "Stacks." Leopard includes one by default that is the destination for everything you download from the Internet, so your desktop will no longer get cluttered with downloads,

Time Machine: This built-in feature will continuously back up all of the contents of your Mac to either an external hard drive directly connected to the computer, or to a hard disk connected to another Mac running Leopard that's on your network. The initial backup, in my tests, took all night, but after that, the system updates the backups hourly and I didn't notice any slowdown during the process.

To recover any file you deleted, you simply click on the Time Machine icon, and you are taken to a view that shows file folders -- or your email or address book or photo collection -- in a stack of windows that appear to go on infinitely. You click on an arrow and the stack of windows zooms until you arrive at the last view in which the missing file existed. Then, you click "restore," and the file is recovered in your normal desktop view. You can also restore whole folders, groups of files, or even an entire hard disk.

Shared computers: In Leopard, any computer that has been set to be shared on your network shows up on the left side of every Finder window. Click on it, and you can access whatever folders have been shared on those machines. Depending on the remote computer's security settings, you may first have to enter a user name and password. It's the simplest method I've ever seen for accessing other computers on a network. And it works with Windows PCs as well as Macs. When I first turned on the Leopard laptop in my office, it immediately found a shared folder on my colleague's old Dell running Windows XP. She hadn't even remembered sharing the folder, which contained files from 2003.

You can copy or move files to and from these shared computers, or view their contents with Cover Flow and Quick Look, or open them in programs on your own computer.

If you are a member of Apple's optional .Mac service, which costs $100 a year, you can use a feature called "Back to My Mac," which can access your Macs from thousands of miles away over the Internet. However, this feature works only over certain kinds of routers (not all of them Apple's) and, as my router didn't qualify, I couldn't test it.

Remote control: For any Mac in your shared-computers list for which you have permission, you can take over the screen by simply clicking on a button called "Share Screen." You can also remotely control distant Macs over the Internet using Apple's built-in iChat instant messaging program, as long as you have permission and the Macs are running Leopard.

iChat: Apple now allows you to use its instant messaging program with Google Talk as well as AOL's AIM service, and you can set up a video chat in which you can present a slide show or display a document. You can also add special backgrounds that can make it look as though you're someplace else, like Paris. In my tests, this even worked with someone on the other end using a Windows XP computer running the latest version of AIM.

Spaces: In order to cut down desktop clutter, Leopard lets you set up as many as 16 different desktops that can run simultaneously, with different programs open in each. You switch among these desktops by using keyboard commands or a menu.

For instance, you might have your iPhoto and iTunes running in one "space," or desktop, your Web browser and email program in another, and Windows XP in another.

Leopard isn't a must-have for current Mac owners, but it adds a lot of value. For new Mac buyers, it makes switching even more attractive.

The Myth of Middle-Class Job Loss

By STEPHEN J. ROSE
October 24, 2007

Economic change is a messy process. New technologies open up many opportunities for those prepared to take advantage of them. At the same time, old firms and their workers are displaced and forced to start over. In 1900, for example, 40% of the U.S. work force was involved in agriculture. Today, that figure is less than 2%, and no serious observer would argue that we are worse off as a result of this transformation.

Yet many of today's most prominent politicians and pundits are making an updated version of precisely this argument. They claim that the decline in the number of manufacturing jobs has led to the replacement of good middle-class jobs by low-skill, low-pay "hamburger-flipping" service jobs.


This kind of populist dogma is bad politics and even worse economics. The assertion that the American middle-class is disappearing along with manufacturing jobs is, put simply, based on an outdated view of how the economy operates, and is empirically wrong. Nonetheless, the view that the economy has failed the middle class is widespread. The outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries is, of course, the latest culprit. Polemicists from all sides find it irresistible to blame expanding trade for middle-class decline. But how widespread a problem is outsourcing, exactly?

It is certainly true that many jobs in manufacturing clothing, steel, metal products and automobiles have gone overseas. Plant closures not only devastate the workers who are displaced, but they have also undermined the vitality of whole communities in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, to name just a few places. But while such communities are a clear sign of the decline in some sectors of the economy, there has been strong employment growth in many other sectors. In research just published by the Progressive Policy Institute, I show that incomes and employment have grown by substantial amounts in every state (even in the so-called Rust Belt) since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993.

In fact, there is no convincing, data-driven proof that trade has led to any overall job loss during the last 30 years. To the contrary, the economy has grown at a slow but steady rate (a few brief recessions notwithstanding) with trade and employment rising in tandem.

To prove that there has been substantial growth of middle-class jobs, I compare the situation that existed in 1979 with that of 2005. The base year is 1979 because it represents the last business-cycle peak before income inequality and the U.S. trade deficit began to grow quickly in the 1980s. To make the comparison fair, earnings in 1979 are increased by almost 150% to adjust for inflation.

Let us look at the distribution of earnings in 1979, compared with the distribution of earnings of the net new jobs created since that year. To begin with, it is necessary to assess the experiences of male and female workers separately. Unfortunately, it is still true that a large number of women are employed in occupational titles that are predominantly held by women -- e.g., teachers, nurses, and clerical workers.

Nevertheless, there has clearly been a sharp increase in female middle-class employment. As recently as 1979, 61% of female workers were in jobs that paid less than $25,000, and only 3% earned more than $50,000 a year. By contrast, more than 36% of new jobs that opened since 1979 for women pay more than $50,000 and only 17% pay less than $25,000.

Critics who bemoan the trajectory of the American economy over the past three decades somehow find it convenient to overlook or play down this historic improvement in the employment status and income levels of women. While women still lag in pay compared to men of similar educational attainment, the extraordinary rise in women's income since 1979 is a fact at odds with the notion of an overall decline in the American middle class.

For men, the change in employment since 1979 has not been quite as clear-cut, or as positive. There has been a tremendous growth in the number of men in high-paying jobs: In 1979, just 10% of male workers earned above $75,000, while fully 34% of new jobs since 1979 have paid this amount or more.

However, there was also growth in the share of male workers earning less than $25,000 a year, from 23% in 1979 to 36% by 2005. This rise of low-paying jobs hit less-educated men particularly hard. For those with just a high school diploma, 87% of the new jobs paid $25,000 or less.

Here's the bottom line: For three-quarters of the workforce (women and the top half of male earners), economic growth translated into earnings gains. But for male workers in the bottom half of the earnings distribution, the decline of unionized manufacturing employment has led to the drying up of some middle-class jobs for those with no post-secondary education.

For the clear majority of the workforce, then, the job market has become more welcoming, not less so. But where are these jobs?

Using a framework that I developed in the 1990s, I find that most of the employment gains over the last 30 years have been in business-management activities (administration, sales, finance and business services) as well as in professional services such as health care and education. While the percentage of U.S. jobs derived from manual work in agriculture, mining, timber and manufacturing has declined, the share of jobs related to low-skilled retail and personal/food services has remained steady.

Undeniably, some people have been left out of this middle-class workforce expansion and need help in making the transition to the new economy. In particular, the last six years have seen very little wage growth for the bottom 80% of the workforce. But we should bear in mind that real gross domestic product per person is up over 60% since 1979, and our goal for the job market should not be simply to keep pace with where things stood nearly three decades ago.

While the pessimists would have us go backward, we should be working today on expanding opportunities in the future. In particular, we have to address what we can do to help displaced men who lack post-secondary education. Higher levels of unionization and increasing the minimum wage would help, but they don't address the more basic need, which is to provide people with the necessary skills for the modern marketplace.

The economy can expand and provide more good jobs as long as workers have the education and training required to succeed. Talk of the "disappearance of the middle class" is actually counterproductive, because it distorts the real challenge. This is to make sure that our young men and women are better prepared to enter the workforce of the 21st century.

Mr. Rose is senior economic fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, where he recently authored a report titled "The Truth About Middle Class Jobs." He has worked both for the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and as an adviser to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.

Candidate Hillary: the GOP's dream

A campaign against Sen. Clinton may give Republicans the best shot at running as the party of change.

Jonah Goldberg

October 23, 2007

The most interesting thing to come out of the umpteenth Republican debate Sunday is confirmation that the GOP is dying to run against Hillary Clinton. Like Don Rickles flaying a heckler, each candidate whacked at Clinton as if she were a pants-suited piñata. When they were done with their one-liners, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee deadpanned: "Look, I like to be funny. There's nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being president."

No, but there's something deeply advantageous about having her as an opponent. So far, the commentary about the Republican offensive against Hillary has focused mostly on how it reflects poorly on the GOP (those Clinton-hating wing nuts are at it again!). What's not been fully grasped is how Hillary gives the GOP its best chance at being the party of change.

Newt Gingrich, for one, has been pointing this out for months, using the electoral triumph of Nicolas Sarkozy in France last spring as an example. A Cabinet minister for the unpopular Jacques Chirac, who'd served in office for a biblically long term of 12 years, Sarkozy ran against his own incumbent party's complaisance as well as his Socialist opponent, Segolene Royal, arguing that she merely represented a return to a failed past and "more of the same."

America -- obviously -- isn't France, but Democrats may be misreading America nonetheless. It seems incandescently clear that voters want a change, and, up to now, change meant little more than Democratic victory and no more President Bush. But Democrats got a significant victory in 2006, when they took control of both houses of Congress. And now Congress is even less popular than Bush. In other words, the clamor for change in Washington is much bigger than Bush.

Besides, Bush is leaving no matter what. And unlike every other election since the 1920s, there's no White House-approved candidate in the race. Any Republican will start with 40% to 45% of the vote in his pocket once he gets the nomination. The question that remains is whether the critical 5% to 10% of swing voters will think Hillary Clinton represents the sort of change they want.

What most independents and swing voters want is an end to the acrimony and bitterness in Washington -- and a candidate they like. Whether that's right or not is irrelevant. That's what they want.

Which Democratic candidate would be most likely to give those voters what they want? Not Hillary, it's safe to say.

Right now, during the primaries, she can get away with boasting about her tenure in the Clinton administration. Party activists are drunk with Clinton nostalgia. On the stump in Iowa, Bill Clinton responded to the claim that Hillary was "yesterday's news" by saying, yeah, but "yesterday's news was pretty good."

In the general election, audiences will remember Whitewater, travelgate, illegal fundraising, bimbo eruptions and impeachment. If they don't, you can be sure Republicans will remind them. Fair or not, the Republicans' intense dislike of Hillary will underscore the idea that a vote for her is a vote for more of the same rancor.

Hence the irony of the Clinton candidacy. Liberal activists keep saying that they want a candidate who is pure, who speaks from the heart and refuses to "triangulate" on core principles the way Bill Clinton did. But Hillary Clinton is Clintonian in more than just name. On national security in particular, she has been alternating between reflexive anti-Bushism to bouts of outright hawkishness on Iran. Desperate to win, Democrats have been willing to overlook that -- so far. But such shifting costs her credibility and passion.

It's all deeply reminiscent of how John Kerry wound up as the nominee in 2004. Once Howard Dean, the conviction candidate, experienced the political equivalent of spontaneous human combustion, Democrats immediately cast about not for another principled politician but one they deemed electable. Bizarrely, they settled on the left-wing senator from Massachusetts who synthesized Ted Kennedy's politics with Michael Dukakis' charisma while bragging about his service in a war he built a career denouncing.

If Democrats could get out of their bubble, it might dawn on them that virtually all of their other candidates are better positioned to run as champions of change. Hillary Clinton has shrewdly tried to trim the differences between her and the competition by claiming that any of them would be better than George W. Bush. From a liberal perspective, that's obviously true. But that perspective won't necessarily dominate come next fall, particularly if conditions in Iraq continue to improve.

Is it really so obvious that, say, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney represent "change" less than the ultimate Clinton retread, complete with Bill as "first gentleman?" That's how Democrats are betting right now, and they may be bitterly disappointed -- again -- when it comes time to collect.

The Putin Touch

The Putin Touch
October 17, 2007; Page A18
WSJ

Vladimir Putin paid Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a visit yesterday, the first Russian leader to hit Tehran since Joseph Stalin in 1943. But let's not get too carried away by the comparison.

More telling was the contrast, in both substance and atmospherics, between the Russian president's meeting with his Iranian counterpart and his talks this past weekend with the U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense. In Iran, Mr. Putin pledged that he would not "renounce our obligations" regarding a nuclear power plant Russia is building in the Iranian port city of Bushehr. He insisted that Iran's "main objectives" in seeking nuclear technology "are peaceful." And he underscored Russia's burgeoning economic ties with the Islamic Republic, which "has already reached $2 billion."

Anyone harboring illusions that Russia can be brought aboard for a tougher round of U.N. sanctions against Iran might want to read these statements twice. Similarly, anyone who thought Russia could be won over to the deployment of a limited U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic should have paid closer attention to Mr. Putin's message to Condoleezza Rice and Bob Gates: "Of course, we can some time in the future decide that some antimissile defense should be established somewhere on the moon," said Mr. Putin, with more sarcasm than wit. He offered this observation after keeping his American guests cooling their heels for 40 minutes, a tactic that recalls the habits of the late Syrian strongman Hafez Assad.

Mr. Putin's claim that the deployment of 10 interceptors poses a threat to his country's nuclear deterrence is almost as preposterous as his claim that Iran's nuclear program poses no threat. Or rather, it would be preposterous if his opposition to this modest U.S. defense initiative wasn't Mr. Putin's entire point. In his smiles yesterday with Mr. Ahmadinejad, as in his scowling at Ms. Rice and Mr. Gates, one sees the future of Russian foreign policy -- and it is beginning to look a lot like its 20th-century past.

Global Warming Delusions

Global Warming Delusions
By DANIEL B. BOTKIN

Wall Street Journal
October 17, 2007; Page A19

Global warming doesn't matter except to the extent that it will affect life -- ours and that of all living things on Earth. And contrary to the latest news, the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.

Case in point: This year's United Nations report on climate change and other documents say that 20%-30% of plant and animal species will be threatened with extinction in this century due to global warming -- a truly terrifying thought. Yet, during the past 2.5 million years, a period that scientists now know experienced climatic changes as rapid and as warm as modern climatological models suggest will happen to us, almost none of the millions of species on Earth went extinct. The exceptions were about 20 species of large mammals (the famous megafauna of the last ice age -- saber-tooth tigers, hairy mammoths and the like), which went extinct about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, and many dominant trees and shrubs of northwestern Europe. But elsewhere, including North America, few plant species went extinct, and few mammals.

We're also warned that tropical diseases are going to spread, and that we can expect malaria and encephalitis epidemics. But scientific papers by Prof. Sarah Randolph of Oxford University show that temperature changes do not correlate well with changes in the distribution or frequency of these diseases; warming has not broadened their distribution and is highly unlikely to do so in the future, global warming or not.

The key point here is that living things respond to many factors in addition to temperature and rainfall. In most cases, however, climate-modeling-based forecasts look primarily at temperature alone, or temperature and precipitation only. You might ask, "Isn't this enough to forecast changes in the distribution of species?" Ask a mockingbird. The New York Times recently published an answer to a query about why mockingbirds were becoming common in Manhattan. The expert answer was: food -- an exotic plant species that mockingbirds like to eat had spread to New York City. It was this, not temperature or rainfall, the expert said, that caused the change in mockingbird geography.

You might think I must be one of those know-nothing naysayers who believes global warming is a liberal plot. On the contrary, I am a biologist and ecologist who has worked on global warming, and been concerned about its effects, since 1968. I've developed the computer model of forest growth that has been used widely to forecast possible effects of global warming on life -- I've used the model for that purpose myself, and to forecast likely effects on specific endangered species.

I'm not a naysayer. I'm a scientist who believes in the scientific method and in what facts tell us. I have worked for 40 years to try to improve our environment and improve human life as well. I believe we can do this only from a basis in reality, and that is not what I see happening now. Instead, like fashions that took hold in the past and are eloquently analyzed in the classic 19th century book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," the popular imagination today appears to have been captured by beliefs that have little scientific basis.

Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve. "Wolves deceive their prey, don't they?" one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change.

The climate modelers who developed the computer programs that are being used to forecast climate change used to readily admit that the models were crude and not very realistic, but were the best that could be done with available computers and programming methods. They said our options were to either believe those crude models or believe the opinions of experienced, data-focused scientists. Having done a great deal of computer modeling myself, I appreciated their acknowledgment of the limits of their methods. But I hear no such statements today. Oddly, the forecasts of computer models have become our new reality, while facts such as the few extinctions of the past 2.5 million years are pushed aside, as if they were not our reality.

A recent article in the well-respected journal American Scientist explained why the glacier on Mt. Kilimanjaro could not be melting from global warming. Simply from an intellectual point of view it was fascinating -- especially the author's Sherlock Holmes approach to figuring out what was causing the glacier to melt. That it couldn't be global warming directly ( i.e., the result of air around the glacier warming) was made clear by the fact that the air temperature at the altitude of the glacier is below freezing. This means that only direct radiant heat from sunlight could be warming and melting the glacier. The author also studied the shape of the glacier and deduced that its melting pattern was consistent with radiant heat but not air temperature. Although acknowledged by many scientists, the paper is scorned by the true believers in global warming.

We are told that the melting of the arctic ice will be a disaster. But during the famous medieval warming period -- A.D. 750 to 1230 or so -- the Vikings found the warmer northern climate to their advantage. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie addressed this in his book "Times of Feast, Times of Famine: A History of Climate Since the Year 1000," perhaps the greatest book about climate change before the onset of modern concerns with global warming. He wrote that Erik the Red "took advantage of a sea relatively free of ice to sail due west from Iceland to reach Greenland. . . . Two and a half centuries later, at the height of the climatic and demographic fortunes of the northern settlers, a bishopric of Greenland was founded at Gardar in 1126."

Ladurie pointed out that "it is reasonable to think of the Vikings as unconsciously taking advantage of this [referring to the warming of the Middle Ages] to colonize the most northern and inclement of their conquests, Iceland and Greenland." Good thing that Erik the Red didn't have Al Gore or his climatologists as his advisers.

Should we therefore dismiss global warming? Of course not. But we should make a realistic assessment, as rationally as possible, about its cultural, economic and environmental effects. As Erik the Red might have told you, not everything due to a climatic warming is bad, nor is everything that is bad due to a climatic warming.

We should approach the problem the way we decide whether to buy insurance and take precautions against other catastrophes -- wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes. And as I have written elsewhere, many of the actions we would take to reduce greenhouse-gas production and mitigate global-warming effects are beneficial anyway, most particularly a movement away from fossil fuels to alternative solar and wind energy.

My concern is that we may be moving away from an irrational lack of concern about climate change to an equally irrational panic about it.

Many of my colleagues ask, "What's the problem? Hasn't it been a good thing to raise public concern?" The problem is that in this panic we are going to spend our money unwisely, we will take actions that are counterproductive, and we will fail to do many of those things that will benefit the environment and ourselves.

For example, right now the clearest threat to many species is habitat destruction. Take the orangutans, for instance, one of those charismatic species that people are often fascinated by and concerned about. They are endangered because of deforestation. In our fear of global warming, it would be sad if we fail to find funds to purchase those forests before they are destroyed, and thus let this species go extinct.

At the heart of the matter is how much faith we decide to put in science -- even how much faith scientists put in science. Our times have benefited from clear-thinking, science-based rationality. I hope this prevails as we try to deal with our changing climate.

Mr. Botkin, president of the Center for the Study of the Environment and professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of "Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century" (Replica Books, 2001).

Clear-Eyed Optimists

I'm old enough to recall the days in the late 1960s when people wore those trendy buttons that read: "Stop the Planet I Want to Get Off." And I will never forget that era's "educational" films of what life would be like in the year 2000. Played on clanky 16-millimeter projectors, they showed images of people walking down the streets of Manhattan with masks on, so they could avoid breathing the poison gases our industrial society was spewing.

The future seemed mighty bleak back then, and you merely had to open the newspapers for the latest story confirming how the human species was speeding down a congested highway to extinction. A group of scientists calling themselves the Club of Rome issued a report called "Limits to Growth." It explained that lifeboat Earth had become so weighed down with humans that we were running out of food, minerals, forests, water, energy and just about everything else that we need for survival. Paul Ehrlich's best-selling book "The Population Bomb" (1968) gave England a 50-50 chance of surviving into the 21st century. In 1980, Jimmy Carter released the "Global 2000 Report," which declared that life on Earth was getting worse in every measurable way.

So imagine how shocked I was to learn, officially, that we're not doomed after all. A new United Nations report called "State of the Future" concludes: "People around the world are becoming healthier, wealthier, better educated, more peaceful, more connected, and they are living longer."

Yes, of course, there was the obligatory bad news: Global warming is said to be getting worse and income disparities are widening. But the joyous trends in health and wealth documented in the report indicate a gigantic leap forward for humanity. This is probably the first time you've heard any of this because -- while the grim "Global 2000" and "Limits to Growth" reports were deemed worthy of headlines across the country -- the media mostly ignored the good news and the upbeat predictions of "State of the Future."

But here they are: World-wide illiteracy rates have fallen by half since 1970 and now stand at an all-time low of 18%. More people live in free countries than ever before. The average human being today will live 50% longer in 2025 than one born in 1955.

To what do we owe this improvement? Capitalism, according to the U.N. Free trade is rightly recognized as the engine of global prosperity in recent years. In 1981, 40% of the world's population lived on less than $1 a day. Now that percentage is only 25%, adjusted for inflation. And at current rates of growth, "world poverty will be cut in half between 2000 and 2015" -- which is arguably one of the greatest triumphs in human history. Trade and technology are closing the global "digital divide," and the report notes hopefully that soon laptop computers will cost $100 and almost every schoolchild will be a mouse click away from the Internet (and, regrettably, those interminable computer games).

It also turns out that the Malthusians (who worried that we would overpopulate the planet) got the story wrong. Human beings aren't reproducing like Norwegian field mice. Demographers now say that in the second half of this century, the human population will stabilize and then fall. If we use the same absurd extrapolation techniques demographers used in the 1970s, Japan, with its current low birth rate, will have only a few thousand citizens left in 300 years.

I take special pleasure in reciting all of this global betterment because my first professional job was working with the "doom-slaying" economist Julian Simon. Starting 30 years ago, Simon (who died in 1998) told anyone who would listen -- which wasn't many people -- that the faddish declinism of that era was bunk. He called the "Global 2000" report "globaloney." Armed with an arsenal of factual missiles, he showed that life on Earth was getting better, and that the combination of free markets and human ingenuity was the recipe for solving environmental and economic problems. Mr. Ehrlich, in response, said Simon proved that the one thing the world isn't running out of "is lunatics."

Mr. Ehrlich, whose every prediction turned out wrong, won a MacArthur Foundation "genius award"; Simon, who got the story right, never won so much as a McDonald's hamburger. But now who looks like the lunatic? This latest survey of the planet is certainly sweet vindication of Simon and others, like Herman Kahn, who in the 1970s dared challenge the "settled science." (Are you listening, global-warming alarmists?)

The media's collective yawn over "State of the Future" is typical of the reaction to just about any good news. When 2006 was declared the hottest year on record, there were thousands of news stories. But last month's revised data, indicating that 1934 was actually warmer, barely warranted a paragraph-long correction in most papers.

So I'm happy to report that the world's six billion people are living longer, healthier and more comfortably than ever before. If only it were easy to fit that on a button.

Mr. Moore is a member of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board.

Riesgo de una mayor inflación

Riesgo de una mayor inflación

Por: Guillermo Laborda
Ámbito Financiero

¿Quién asegura que Néstor Kirchner seguirá manteniendo el dólar en $ 3,20 como máximo después de las elecciones? Es más, hasta tiene incentivos para dejar de hacerlo si gana la candidata. Esta cuestión es lo que realmente está detrás de la suba de las tasas para los créditos a público y empresas con el retiro del dinero en bancos colocado a plazo fijo en pesos. En teoría, el gobierno podría, si quisiera, mantener el tipo de cambio en los actuales niveles. Pero lo que piensan ahorristas, inversores y empresarios es diferente: anticipan inflación y dólar más altos en 2008.

Las medidas por anunciarse para bajar las tasas de los préstamos no ayudan a calmar estas expectativas. Se puede descontar que la liquidez a inyectarse en la plaza financiera puede tener como destino final la compra de dólares (y motorizar el alza de precios), por más llamados telefónicos y presiones que se hagan a quienes demandan divisas en el mercado mayorista de cambios. Incluso el gran negocio, de concretarse estos anuncios, algo difícil, sería acceder a uno de estos créditos. Es que con una tasa fija de 9% para empresas o 12% para consumo, la inflación -hoy ya instalada en 20% anual- se encarga de licuar la deuda.

Una pista de la conducta de Néstor Kirchner a futuro -y también de la candidata si triunfa- se ve en el comportamiento de las reservas del Banco Central. El objetivo crucial de acumular divisas hace dos meses que está archivado. En el primer semestre del año, el Banco Central compraba dólares a un ritmo de u$s 1.500 millones por mes. En setiembre, el saldo fue de unos módicos u$s 40 millones. Compran ahorristas y empresas como refugio, y se fugaron divisas de inversores extranjeros. Ganar reservas a cualquier precio ya no es el lema presidencial. Ahora, es que el dólar no pase de los $ 3,20.

Pero la consigna y esa barrera a $ 3,20 existe hasta el 28 de octubre. Si no hay señales adecuadas para que se modifique el comportamiento de quienes hoy tienen colocaciones en pesos, nada cambiará. Si ya se escucha que el titular de la UIA, Juan Lascurain, pide un dólar más alto; lo mismo el abogado Eduardo Curia; y si el tipo de cambio más elevado licua gasto y deuda pública en pesos, todo ello juega a favor de anticipar que ello ocurrirá. Por este motivo, la importancia de los primeros movimientos que se hagan desde el lunes 29.

Lo que está claro igual es que los Kirchner son poco propensos a perder reservas del BCRA. Es más, da la impresión de que estarían dispuestos antes a avalar una suba del dólar. Quedó en evidencia en medio de la crisis hipotecaria de EE.UU. y en esta búsqueda de refugio de inversores locales. Buscaron que los que vendan dólares sean los bancos Nación, Provincia, pero evitar que el Central lo haga. Esos dólares son sagrados, lo que en definitiva hace pensar que, llegado el caso, de continuar la presión alcista, se podría optar por dejar subir el tipo de cambio antes que sacrificar reservas.

Lo esperanzador es que desde Estados Unidos surgen señales de que lo peor de la crisis financiera quedó atrás. Sólo entonces sería cuestión de mover las piezas correctas desde el 29. Hasta habría bancos interesados en financiar al gobierno hoy, fruto de la mejora en la liquidez internacional. Claro que en este caso el secretario de Comercio Interior, Guillermo Moreno, poco puede hacer: si se lanzara un BONAR 17, un papel a diez años de plazo, la Argentina debería pagar una tasa de 10,50% anual en dólares. Es alta, pero peor es tener el crédito clausurado. Tampoco es que abunden las ofertas de financiamiento dado que lo que podría emitirse en BONAR no superaría los u$s 500 millones.

Los movimientos que se hagan en los próximos días serán claves. Lo que está claro es que los próximos anuncios para bajar las tasas juegan en contra. Más parecen una suerte de «anti-Nobel». Quienes ayer fueron galardonados por el Comité de la Academia Real Sueca investigaron la forma de mejorar el funcionamiento de los mercados, los modelos de regulación, por ejemplo, cuando no hay libre competencia, cuando los consumidores no están bien informados y se busca garantizar una distribución equitativa entre los participantes. Moreno, más lejos de estar nominado.

Cristina necesita 20% de inflación para mantener el excedente de recursos

Cristina necesita 20% de inflación para mantener el excedente de recursos

Por: Enrique Szewach
Ámbito Financiero

El presidente Kirchner ha hecho del manejo discrecional de la «caja» su arma política más importante. Testigo de lujo que fue de la «rebelión de los gobernadores» contra De la Rúa, y de la conspiración de los barones de la provincia de Buenos Aires en el armado de los tristes saqueos de diciembre de 2001, sabe que tener dinero en la cuenta y manejarlo a voluntad resulta clave para conservar el poder. Su «pseudoortodoxia» presupuestaria es más hija de su instinto de supervivencia política que de una concepción fiscalista de la economía.

En ese sentido, uno de los recursos más importantes que utilizó su administración en estos años ha sido el de subestimar ingresos impositivos para luego poder asignar el excedente, sin control del Congreso y sin limitaciones legales. Ese manejo discrecional del excedente de recaudación, que se mide en miles de millones de dólares en estos años, es muy superior al efecto de los «superpoderes» del jefe de Gabinete y su capacidad de reasignación de partidas.

Ahora bien, esa subestimación de ingresos tiene dos componentes: una menor estimación del crecimiento económico y una menor estimación de la inflación, dado que la recaudación nominal aumenta por el crecimiento de la economía y por el incremento de los precios. En el cuadro se presenta en la columna «PBI» la diferencia entre el crecimiento presupuestado (4% para cada año) y el observado a final del año, estimandopara 2007 el 7,5% y 6% para 2008. En la columna «Inflación», por su parte, se refleja la diferencia entre la tasa de inflación presupuestada y también la verificada al final del año, estimando 18% para 2007.

Téngase en cuenta que ese 18% no es el IPC o el CER, sino una «mezcla» Consumidor-Mayorista, dado que la recaudación fiscal se ve influenciada tanto por la evolución de los precios al consumidor como de los precios mayoristas. Finalmente, en la columna «Total» se registra la composición de ambas diferencias, multiplicando ambas.

# Subestimación

Lo que se desprende del cuadro mencionado es que, tanto en 2005 como en 2006, los mayores ingresos surgieron por una clara subestimación del crecimiento y una menor distancia entre la inflación observada frente a la presupuestada. En cambio, en 2007, el boom de ingresos «excedentes», es decir, libres de asignación por parte del Presidente, se vincula más con la aceleración de la inflación que con el mayor crecimiento, que igual sigue siendo importante. Como el Presupuesto estima otro 4% de crecimiento para 2008, pero ahora la mayoría de los analistas esperan una mayor desaceleración del crecimiento -digamos, 6%-, esta tendencia a que los ingresos «sobrantes» dependan más de la inflación que del crecimiento se acentuará en el próximo año.

Suponiendo que Cristina, si es presidenta, aspira, o necesita, tener el mismo porcentaje de recaudación excedente que su marido para «convencer» a los sindicalistas de aceptar las decisiones del Consejo Económico Social, subsidiar a los empresarios, tasa de interés o energía; manejar la situación deficitaria de la provincia de Buenos Aires o conspirar en Santa Fe o Córdoba y seguir controlando a los «nuevos» intendentes de la provincia de Buenos Aires, y dado el crecimiento económico de 6% estimado, se puede calcular la «diferencia» de inflación que mantiene dicho excedente libre en 15% de 2007. Esa diferencia es 13. Como la inflación estimada por el Presupuesto es de 7,3%, entonces, la inflación que necesita Cristina para mantener, porcentualmente, los mismos recursos excedentes que Néstor, ronda 20%.

Obviamente, éste es un ejercicio teórico. Casi un juego. Siempre hay margen para subir retenciones a la exportación -aunque seguramente habrá que usarlas para nuevos aumentos de salarios y jubilaciones, que no están contemplados en el Presupuesto- y puede ser que, siendo Cristina mujer y atractiva, no necesite del recurso de «billetera mata galán», del que abusó su marido para mantener el poder. Pero el ejercicio lo que muestra es que seguir con esta política de hacer «caja» por encima de lo presupuestado para usarla discrecionalmente, en una economía que se desacelera implica una mayor demanda de inflación por parte del gobierno. Demanda de inflación que puede resultar incompatible con un contexto macroeconómico complejo como el que se avecina.

Capitalismo de amigos vs. capitalismo de mercado

Capitalismo de amigos vs. capitalismo de mercado

Por: Enrique Szewach
Ámbito Financiero

La extraordinaria performance de nuestro seleccionado de rugby, como hace pocos meses la correspondiente a los representantes del básquetbol, hizo que surgiera, casi automáticamente, la comparación con el pobre desempeño que, en los últimos años, caracteriza al seleccionado argentino de fútbol. Mucho se ha escrito respecto de las diferencias entre deportes. Las características más negativas de nuestro «ser nacional» impregnadas en el fracaso del fútbol de selección a nivel internacional, pese a las cualidades indiscutidas de nuestras individualidades, frente al trabajo en equipo, el espíritu solidario, la disciplina táctica, la garra, el esfuerzo y el hambre de gloria que parecen predominar entre Los Pumas, o entre Ginóbili, Scola y sus compañeros.

Es probable que todo lo comentado al respecto sea la clave que explica las diferencias entre el éxito y el fracaso de los deportes mencionados. Pero, garra y corazón Los Pumas los tienen desde siempre, o al menos desde que recibieron dicho apelativo en la ya mítica gira por Sudáfrica en los sesenta. Lo mismo ocurre en el caso del básquet. Sin embargo, recién ahora ambos deportes han logrado encaramarse al tope del reconocimiento mundial. ¿Se trata sólo de una generación dorada? ¿Una casualidad genética? ¿Sólo un momento excepcional? Puede ser.

• Superprofesionales

Arriesgo, sin embargo, una hipótesis complementaria poco difundida en los análisis, quizá porque pone de manifiesto una cuestión políticamente incorrecta para los tiempos que corren.

Estos Pumas, como estos basquetbolistas, han sumado a su capacidad individual, su garra, su talento, su corazón, profesionalismo. Son superprofesionales de deportes dominados por el capitalismo de mercado. Juegan en clubes que son empresas. Se entrenan usando y aprovechando al máximo la tecnología, los softwares de análisis del juego del rival, la medicina del deporte, etc. Participan de entornos en donde se privilegia la relación con los consumidores, espectadores. Son parte del marketing, la publicidad, el espectáculo. Se manejan con los mismos recursos que sus rivales. Ya no dan las ventajas del amateurismo «progre». ¿Pero acaso el fútbol no reúne las mismas características, o aun más? Sí, respecto de los clubes europeos en donde juega la mayoría de los muchachos de la selección. No, en cuanto a lo que rodea a la Selección argentina. En nuestro fútbol predomina, para usar un símil muy claro hoy en la vida económica, el «capitalismo de amigos». O lo que es peor, el capitalismo de «mafiosos». Dirigentes socios de barras bravas. Periodistas socios de dirigentes. Jugadores que, desde chicos, pertenecen a representantes, a su vez, testaferros de otros que no pueden figurar. Políticos que «deciden» quienes juegan y quienes dirigen.

• Vidriera

En ese contexto, la Selección no es la «frutilla del postre» de un mercado y un espectáculo. Es la vidriera para elevar cotizaciones, vender mejor, cobrar más comisiones; firmar contratos multimillonarios en donde los verdaderos protagonistas tienen la menor participación. Clubes que no son empresas, sino «asociaciones sin fines de lucro». Sin transparencia, sin contabilidad, sin auditorías, sin mercado de capitales detrás. Dirigentes que mueven millones, rodeados de marginalidad. Estadios destruidos, campos sin pasto. Policías que hacen negocio con las horas extras y barrabravas que hacen negocio con los policías. De ese entorno, escasamente profesional, en el sentido más puro de la palabra, sólo surgen campeones cuando allí sí, una generación dorada, o una casualidad genética, permite que los Maradona, y ojalá los Messi, nos den triunfos y campeonatos, pese a la falta de organización, de disciplina creativa, de innovación tecnológica, de la empresa privada al servicio del deporte.

El «modelo» alrededor del rugby de Europa y Oceanía, o en torno al básquet de la NBA es el «despreciado» y criticado por la mayoría de los hacedores de política argentinos. En cambio, el «modelo» que rodea al fútbol vernáculo y que se trasplanta por carácter transitivo a la Selección nacional es el que nuestros dirigentes aclaman y del que se sienten orgullosos. Amiguismo, corrupción, improvisación, desorden. No es «mala suerte» o que «no ligamos», entonces, la diferencia entre triunfos y derrotas. Aunque, insisto, siempre puede haber un Messi, un Agüero o un Buonannote que nos salve. Como siempre puede haber buenos precios de los commodities que nos ayuden.